by Matt Farwell
* * *
—
BOB AND JANI BERGDAHL were in Washington, D.C., where they had stayed for a few days following the annual Rolling Thunder rally, when their phone rang with a call from SOCOM in Tampa. It was the kind of phone call that in 2009 would have been a big deal. By the spring of 2014—when, despite the best efforts of Norwegian, German, Saudi, and Qatari mediators, diplomatic failures had become routine—the Bergdahls had reasons to be skeptical.
The SOCOM operator told Jani to hold while the call was patched through to the president. “We got him,” Obama said.
By noon, as Bowe heard English spoken by Americans for the first time in five years and the Guantanamo Five tasted freedom for the first time in twelve, the White House made its first attempts to turn the event into a good news story. The press office held a preliminary call with select reporters and producers who agreed not to publish or broadcast the news for thirty minutes—just enough time for the West Wing to rush out a three-paragraph statement from the president.
“Today the American people are pleased,” it began. Obama lauded the Bergdahls’ courage and sacrifice and offered somber remembrances for the missing and captured soldiers who never made it home from their wars. Bergdahl’s homecoming, the White House said, “is a reminder of America’s unwavering commitment to leave no man or woman in uniform behind on the battlefield.”
Obama singled out the emir of Qatar for “his personal commitment to this effort,” calling it a testament to “the partnership between our two countries.” Without naming the Weinstein, Rutherford, Coleman, Foley, Tice, Mueller, Kassig, or Sotloff families, Obama reassured them that his thoughts and prayers were “with those other Americans whose release we continue to pursue.”
In closing, the White House reiterated the same message from Obama’s speeches earlier that week at Bagram and West Point: that even as the United States prepared to leave Afghanistan, it simultaneously “renewed its commitment to the Afghan people.” It was a paradox, but in the hue and uplift of Obama’s words, anything seemed possible, including “a stable, secure, sovereign, and unified Afghanistan.” Bergdahl’s recovery was presented as proof that diplomacy works and is the keystone to Afghan reconciliation. Yet nowhere in the statement did the White House mention the deal that had actually freed Bergdahl, or the five men strapped into a C-17 jetting over the Atlantic that day to start new lives in Qatar.
Given that the news was no longer containable, it was an inexplicable omission. Seven minutes before the White House released its statement, a Washington Post reporter, tipped off by an anonymous source, posted details of the swap on Twitter. It fell to the Pentagon and Hagel to fill in the gaps.
“Of course I knew there would be a backlash,” Hagel said. “And of course I knew it would come from the Republicans, but you do the right thing. And this was the right thing.”
Hagel was in Singapore, speaking at the annual Asia Security Summit, when the news broke. His staff stepped in with a short statement that explained the basics and took Pentagon ownership. Hagel vowed that Qatar would live up to its promises and keep the Taliban under close watch: “The national security of the United States will not be compromised.” Minutes after his statement went public, General Dempsey posted on Twitter: “It is our ethos that we never leave a fallen comrade. Welcome home SGT Bowe Bergdahl.” Kerry followed with a three-paragraph message written in perfect synchronicity with the White House and Pentagon talking points: the government’s “sober and solemn duty” to bring every man home, his own “personal gratitude to the Government of Qatar,” and the Afghan people’s hopeful future “as they build a secure, stable, sovereign, and unified country.”
In the media, the Pentagon began telling a story of accomplishment. On CNN, Pentagon correspondent Barbara Starr conveyed the “exquisite security details” and extensive surveillance required to pull off the historic battlefield rendezvous. Hagel said the teams involved that day had done “a masterful job.”
By any measure of American politics, the prisoner exchange was not a victory, and the story of the operational success was quickly subsumed. In the two and half years since it had first been floated by the State Department and summarily shot down by Congress, the deal hadn’t become any more popular. The White House’s inability to reveal the details of the trade in its initial press statement wasn’t just clumsiness; it was the visible symptom of deeper dysfunction. For five years, the administration had struggled to organize and maintain a unified war policy. For the families of Americans held captive in multiple countries, the lack of a functional hostage policy had become equally plain. On Capitol Hill, the same congressmen who had spent years demanding that the president bring Bowe home were then the first to reject the only viable option they had been presented to do so. In May, Republican senator Kelly Ayotte had called on the Pentagon to “do all it can” to find him and bring him home. Weeks later, she slammed the deal on grounds that it incentivized future kidnappings. Congressman Richard Nugent had introduced two bills on the House floor specifically demanding his recovery. The government must “do everything possible not to leave any members of the armed forces behind,” he had said. But after the swap, he parsed the definition of his earlier words: “Doing ‘everything possible’ in my mind does not include breaking the law and jeopardizing national security.”
When the decision was finally made in the Conflict Resolution Cell at the White House, there was good reason not to alert Congress; every prior time it had, the plans had been leaked to the press. To get anything accomplished amid such division and disunity, the administration, and the NSC in particular, had to hold its information close and commit itself to a precision operation. At the White House, Jeff Eggers, who had been working under Doug Lute as the NSC’s senior director for Afghanistan and Pakistan, had taken over Lute’s position in 2013. Eggers was also a former Navy SEAL with multiple combat deployments, and as the final tense days unfolded, he spent several nights sleeping on the floor of his White House office.
The Bergdahls had arrived in Washington, D.C., a week earlier, ahead of the Rolling Thunder rally. As they had in the prior two years, they were invited to a West Wing meeting, this time with NSC staffers, including Navy Captain Alexander Krongard, Homeland Security and Counterterrorism adviser Lisa Monaco, and Deputy National Security Adviser Tony Blinken. The officials knew that the gears of the swap were already in motion, but when they updated Bob and Jani on Friday May 30, they couldn’t say a word. The next morning, when Sergeant Bergdahl was confirmed safe, Eggers went home to rest for the first time in days.
White House staffers had gone into work that day in jeans and sandals with a plan for a brief, clean statement that would pass the baton to Hagel and the Pentagon. In their heady buzz over the day’s events—a disaster averted, a soldier saved, and a family united—the plan began to change, and a faulty assumption began circulating, that the relief and happiness that they felt in the White House would be shared by all Americans. The president told his aides that political fallout was inevitable, so he didn’t want to shy away from it; he wanted to own it. When his aides then told him that the Bergdahls were coincidentally already in Washington, it seemed like serendipity. Someone blurted out: “Let’s do something in the Rose Garden.” Obama liked the idea.
* * *
—
IT WASN’T AS THOUGH Bob Bergdahl had been keeping his opinions to himself. In public appearances, he had openly appealed to the mercy of his son’s captors based on his understanding of them as men of faith. His entrepreneurial efforts, including the March flight to Dubai, were known to Mullen, Mattis, and officials at several agencies. A week earlier on Twitter, before he knew that the deal had been made, he had reminded the Taliban, “I am still working to free captives on all sides of this conflict.” Earlier in May, he had posted Arabic calligraphy ( : “patience”) and quoted Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson: “It is the function of the citizen to keep the gov
ernment from falling into error.” And yet no one at the White House suggested keeping Bob away from the cameras that day.
Inside the Oval Office, he and Jani were ecstatic. Obama apologized for months of chronic leaks, but kept the mood light, chatting with Bob about the Dairy Queen and basketball courts where they had both hung out as kids in Honolulu. Suddenly, aides ushered them into the Rose Garden, where the press was waiting.
“We were just supposed to stand there,” Jani recalled. “We weren’t supposed to say anything.” The president wore a blue shirt and blazer, no tie. Flanking him, Jani wore a sleeveless beige Sunday dress, heels, and a smile. Bob wore a white shirt, blue tie, ponytail, and beard. Things had moved so fast, he hadn’t had time to find a jacket. Before the president said a word, it already looked improvised.
“Good afternoon, everybody. This morning, I called Bob and Jani Bergdahl and told them that after nearly five years in captivity, their son, Bowe, is coming home.”
Jani looked at the president, then her husband, and bit her lip to fight back tears. Obama reminded the country that while in captivity, Sergeant Bergdahl had missed birthdays, holidays, “and the simple moments with family and friends, which all of us take for granted.” Jani closed her eyes and nodded along to Obama’s cadence.
In its three-and-a-half-minute entirety, the president’s address added no new information to what had already been reported and repeated by Hagel, Kerry, Dempsey, and others. But Obama had wanted to own the story, to spread good news, and without a word of warning, he invited Bob and Jani to address the nation.
After Jani said a brief word of thanks, Bob stepped behind the presidential podium, where he did not appear uncomfortable or unprepared.
“I’d like to say to Bowe right now, who is having trouble speaking English, bismillah il rahman il rahim, ze aba yem. I’m your father, Bowe.”
President Obama pursed his lips into a tight smile as Bob spoke the Islamic peace blessing, thanked Khalifa al-Thani, emir of Qatar, and the Americans who had saved his son’s life earlier that morning.
In closing, he shared his repeated gratitude and hope that the media would respect his family’s privacy in the days ahead. Obama hugged them both, kissed Jani on the cheek, and put his hands on their backs as all three walked off stage.
In the years that followed, the Bergdahls both felt that Obama’s spur of the moment decision to have them speak came from a place of genuine grace and empathy. But regardless of the president’s motivations, Bob had defined the moment. Anger simmered below his joy that day. Why had this gone on for five years? What about the other hostages? In his work as an asset for the FBI and JPRA, he knew the answers, and he didn’t like them. Inside the White House, Obama’s senior aides knew immediately that the bearded white guy speaking Pashto was going to be a problem.
Mullen was watching from home, incredulous for a different reason. Somebody in the president’s inner circle had thought this was a good idea, he surmised: to use real people as stage props to make the president look good. “There was no need for that. To put a very vulnerable couple front and center. Actually, I was appalled by it,” Mullen said. “It never should have happened.”
NINETEEN
FOX NATION
Anna Fontaine was at home in Hailey when she saw the news. She called Jani to confirm and then rushed to the local restaurant where she and ten more of Bowe’s friends popped a bottle of champagne. On the sidewalk’s chalkboard sign that listed the night’s specials, they wrote the news: “BOWE IS FREE!!”
Four blocks north on Main Street, Jane Drussel was busy spreading the word from her art supply store, which for five years had filled the town’s yellow-ribbon needs. Drussel, who was also serving a term as the president of the Hailey Chamber of Commerce, told the young women working that morning to start making yellow posters with Bowe’s smiling face and to go hang them around town. On Main Street cars started honking their horns in a spontaneous chorus of glee.
For nearly half a decade, the courteous boy who had ridden his bicycle everywhere was the town’s most visible cause. Each year on Memorial Day, local Scout troops tied fresh yellow ribbons donated by the Blaine County Republicans around the big old trees on Main Street. At the annual Hailey Days of the Old West 4th of July Celebration rodeo, one young girl competitor had designed her routine around Bowe, riding a horse she decorated with yellow ribbons and carrying the black POW flag held high, the entire routine set to the Christian rock anthem, “Set Me Free.” The yellow stickers framing Bowe’s face were everywhere: at the supermarket, at the gas stations, and on the rear windshields of hippie campervans and Ford pickups alike. “Bring Bowe Home” had united the community, and by the time the complicating factors of the day had emerged—that Bowe had not been released for nothing or that his father would address the nation from the White House with the Koran’s opening blessing—Hailey had already announced Bowe’s welcome-home party.
By Sunday morning, the high emotions in Southern Idaho hit the pages of The New York Times, which declared, “Planned Celebration for Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl Just Got a Whole Lot Bigger.” National media correspondents started showing up at Zaney’s, where they greeted Sue Martin with bear hugs and tears in their eyes. As her gravel parking lot turned into a satellite-truck staging zone, camera crews went crawling along Main Street for feel-good footage of a rare good news story about the war.
Across the county, politicians from both parties rushed to join the drum circle forming on Twitter. “Welcome home, Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl. A grateful America thanks you for your service,” wrote Mississippi Republican senator Thad Cochran. Nevada Republican Mark Amodei wrote: “Best news I’ve heard in a long time! #standwithbowe.” Ohio Republican Jim Renacci called him “a true American hero.”
The next day, Bob and Jani arrived to their own hero’s welcome in Boise. On their flight from Washington, when the airline crew announced the couple was on board, the plane burst into applause. Arriving at Idaho National Guard headquarters flanked by Colonel Brad Poppen and Major Kevin Hickey, the family’s indefatigable casualty assistance officer, they were cheered again by a crowd of national guardsmen and dozens of POW-MIA bikers and supporters. Tim Marsano, Bob’s original media mediator and now a colonel, welcomed them back. It hadn’t always been a smooth ride for Marsano and Bob; the family’s decision in the spring of 2012 to take their story public had been a significant stress point. But none of that mattered anymore. Marsano told the audience that his time helping this soldier’s family was “one of the great honors” of his career.
Outside the auditorium, the country was still processing what it had seen the day before. Even as Bob and Jani spoke to what would be their last supportive public audience for years, Blackfoot Company veterans were talking among themselves, outraged that Bergdahl’s parents had been feted as if their son had been a hero. The veterans of 2nd Platoon had known the truth for five years, and this wasn’t it. The problem was the Army; they had all signed the nondisclosure agreements and feared the repercussions of breaking a Defense Department contract. In Texas, Cody Full considered the dilemma, cracked open a case of beer, and logged on to Twitter.
“Fuck what you heard. I was there,” Full wrote. He always thought something was just a little off with Bergdahl: “Like mental off, I felt like he thought life was a movie in his head.” Full told the story of an oddball who wouldn’t drink beer and eat barbecue with him and the others, who stayed inside by himself studying maps and languages, who rarely wore deodorant, and who didn’t own a phone or a car.
Full tweeted about the first frantic hours after Bergdahl went missing, and as his memories mingled with recollections of four-year-old gossip, he wrote:
“Villagers said an American did come through the area and was wanting water and someone who spoke English. Wanted to meet with Taliban.”
Though other 2nd Platoon veterans would go on to repeat that claim, the interpreter with them at OP Mest
, John Mohammed, rejected the story outright. To date, no evidence has been presented that Bergdahl ever sought out the Taliban.
As Full’s story lit up online, congressional Republicans wasted no time hiding their own dismay. House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers told CNN that he was “extremely troubled . . . that the United States negotiated with terrorists.” As the grumbles grew, National Security Adviser Susan Rice booked an appearance on ABC’s This Week with George Stephanopoulos. The show’s dramatic opening teaser laid the groundwork for a rising scandal: “American POW Bowe Bergdahl finally freed. His dramatic release, and new controversy: Was it an illegal trade for terrorists?”
Sunday morning television had been dangerous territory for Rice before. Following the September 11, 2012, attack on a U.S. government compound in Benghazi, Libya, Rice had falsely claimed on several shows that the well-organized attack had been the work of a spontaneous mob. Her interview with Stephanopoulos seemed no better informed:
Anybody who has been held in those conditions in captivity for five years has paid an extraordinary price. But that is not the point. The point is that he’s back. He’s going to be safely reunited with his family. He served the United States with honor and distinction.
One White House official later described it as a case of “imprecise wording.” But with it, Rice had reasserted the most far-fetched conceit of the Rose Garden spectacle: that the lopsided prisoner swap was a decisive political victory. To a community of veterans already seething under five years of Army message control, lauding Bergdahl’s service looked like inexcusable ignorance at best, and an egregious taunt at worst. Senator Lindsey Graham called for Rice to resign. John McCain advised her to “stay off the Sunday talk shows.” Before sunrise the next morning, the story had taken a decisive turn with an essay published on the Daily Beast by former U.S. Army Captain Nathan Bradley Bethea, a Blackfoot Company officer who served during the DUSTWUN and, like Cody Full, believed the truth was more important than his legal bills.